Cotton and Peanuts

Cotton and Peanuts

Maura Bennett
Maura Bennett

Remarkably good. That’s the assessment of USDA meteorologist, Brad Rippey, of this season’s cotton crop. Although the cotton crop development is behind schedule, good conditions have only improved.

Rippey: “That is now 71% good to excellent, up 4 points from last week. 6% very poor to poor, a very minor 1 point increase. Compare that to last year’s crop which was just 46% good to excellent, 25% very poor to poor. Other southern crops continue to perform well this summer amid relatively cool and generally wet conditions.”

Rippey, says 79%of the cotton bolls around the country have opened as of the last check. That’s 10% behind the 5-year average and well behind last year at this time when 87% of the cotton bolls had opened.

Rippey says the peanut crop has also been performing well this summer amid the minimal heat and wet conditions.

Rippey: “ We see ¾ of the crop rated good to excellent, just 3% very poor to poor. That’s an improvement from last week’s numbers 73% good to excellent and 3% very poor to poor.”

Rippey says the middle of the nation pushing eastward has a late summer heatwave moving through. He says that will be good to push summer crops toward maturity. Given the fact that there is adequate to abundant soil moisture across much of the region, it shouldn’t be too much of a concern for the health of summer crops. He says in the deep south, the rice harvest is already underway.

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